Fourteen Years of Experience of Liver Transplantation for Wilson’s Disease; a Report on 107 Cases from Shiraz, Iran

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Liver transplantation is a potential cure for liver damage from Wilson’s disease but the course of neuropsychiatric manifestations after transplantation remains undetermined. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this study, data on all patients who’d received a liver transplant for Wilson’s disease at the Shiraz Organ Transplantation Center between December 2000 and March 2014 were reviewed and compared to data on a control group who’d received a liver transplant over the same period but due to other causes. RESULTS: Out of 2198 patients who’d received a liver transplant in the period; 107 patients were diagnosed with Wilson’s disease (21 with fulminant hepatic failure); age of patient ranged from 5 to 59 years; 56.07% of patients in this series had some type of neuropsychiatric manifestation before transplantation, of which 66.67% showed improvement after the procedure. 18 patients had aggravation of neuropsychiatric symptoms after transplantation. These neuropsychiatric symptoms were mostly for anxiety, tremor and depression but there were four cases of new onset dysarthria, rigidity and ataxia in various combinations. Survival rates of 1-month, 1-year, and 5-years for patients with Wilson’s disease were 88%, 86%, 82%, respectively, evaluations were not statistically different from that of the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Liver transplantation showed good long-term results in patients with Wilson’s disease, even in those presenting fulminant hepatic failure. Neuropsychiatric manifestations normally show improvement after transplantation but in some cases new onset of manifestations occurred after successful liver transplantation.